The Hon. S.M. Marikkar
Hon. S.M. Marikkar criticized the Government’s handling of the recent electricity blackout explanation and questioned whether commitments in its policy document had been implemented. He asked whether installment payment arrangements for electricity and water connection charges for low-usage households and MSMEs had been introduced after five months. He also cited the policy pledge to reduce electricity prices through competitive procurement and a shift to solar and wind power, arguing that household tariffs remain among the highest in South Asia.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I begin not at the beginning but at the current absurdity. Ministers cling to Sinhala catchphrases. When questioned about the “monkey” blackout, the Energy Minister now says, “No one said a monkey jumped.” Yet the whole country heard it. Please consider how such answers play globally.
¶ 02 Your policy (p. 167) states: “Allow new or reconnected supply for households under 60 units and for MSMEs to pay upfront connection charges in installments via the monthly bill.” It’s been five months—has this been done? Similarly for water bills? No.
¶ 03 On p. 165: “Make Sri Lanka the country with the lowest electricity prices in the region by activating competitive procurement and shifting from oil-based power to low-cost solar and wind.” Where is this? We still have the highest household tariffs in South Asia. A 100-unit household bill here is about Rs. 5,280, while the South Asian average is Rs. 2,077.90—Sri Lanka is about 254% higher.
¶ 04 Your learned professors wrote the policy; please implement it.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Monday, 3 March 2025 ·No. 1742268353096939 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/18381
Cite as: The Hon. S.M. Marikkar. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 3 March 2025. No. 1742268353096939. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/18381